Want To Play? (Monkeewrench)

31

They’d lost daylight savings time last Saturday night, and by 5:30 Halloran’s office was gloomy with that oppressive kind of half-light that settles when the sunlight weakens, like an old light bulb fading away before it blows out completely.

He sighed and snapped on the green-shaded desk lamp, postponing the need for the sterile glare of the overhead fluorescents. He’d never noticed the buzzing until Sharon had mentioned it. Ever since, it had been driving him crazy, especially at times like these, when the day tour had left and the building was quiet.

He perked up at the sound of Bonar’s voice in the outer office, and raised his brows when his friend’s considerable bulk filled the doorway. He’d apparently showered in the locker room downstairs, and had exchanged his uniform for slacks with an honest-to-God crease, a turtleneck sweater, and a sport coat. Halloran could smell Old Spice all the way across the room.

‘You look very handsome.’

‘I already have a date.’

‘You taking Marjorie to dinner?’

‘That was the original plan. Out to dinner, and then back to her place where I suspect I would have been forced to lay waste to the woman.’ He tossed his overcoat on the couch in disgust.

‘Did I hear past tense?’

‘Actually, I think it might have been future perfect. Did Minneapolis call you back yet?’

Halloran tossed his pen on the desk. ‘No, the arrogant asshole from Minneapolis did not call me back.’

Bonar clucked his tongue in a scold. ‘You have to talk nicely to the big policemen in the big city or they won’t share.’

‘Damnit, I’ve left three messages for this man. You can’t tell me he hasn’t had five minutes sometime in the past six hours to make a courtesy call to another department.’

‘I wouldn’t bet on that.’ Bonar glanced at the dark screen of the television in the corner. ‘You didn’t watch the news, did you?’

‘Hell, no. I’ve been having too much fun writing a report for the commissioners, who want very badly for us to arrest someone for the Kleinfeldts’ murders, preferably someone from very far away who has no connection with our county at all. A Colombian drug lord passing through on his way back to Bogotá would be ideal.’

Bonar’s smile was grim. ‘Well, they had the TV on down in dispatch. I caught a piece of it on my way up here. Magozzi was the name of that detective, right?’

‘Right.’

‘Well, he happens to be the lucky lead on those murders in Minneapolis, and another went down this afternoon. At the Mall of America, no less. The whole city’s going nuts.’

Halloran frowned. ‘You mean the computer game thing?’

Bonar nodded. ‘And before you make the quantum leap and pretend you thought of it first, I’ve already been there. His call to the school had something to do with computers, and since chances are pretty slim he’s working anything but this case right now, that means the school is somehow connected to the computer game murders.’

Halloran straightened in his chair. ‘Jesus.’

Bonar shoved his hands in his pants pockets and started pacing. ‘So the Minneapolis murders are connected to a Catholic school in upstate New York, and our murders are connected to that same school, or at least they are if the kid did it, which makes you want to believe our murders are connected to their murders, right?’

‘Wrong. I don’t want to believe that at all.’

‘Me neither. And maybe they aren’t, because he’s looking for a current e-mail address, and we’re looking for a kid who lived there years ago before they even had computers. All the way up here I’ve been trying to figure out how a computer game killer in Minneapolis jibes with a family killing in Calumet, and there’s nothing there except a coincidence that makes your head hurt.’ He sighed and eased down on the couch, elbows braced on his knees, hands dangling between his legs. ‘I’m getting Sharon’s bad feeling about this.’

Halloran put his elbows on the desk and stared straight ahead, thinking hard. After a few minutes, he decided it was a futile exercise. He needed more information, and he wasn’t even sure that would help.

‘I’ve got to call Marjorie and cancel,’ Bonar said, standing abruptly.

‘And do what?’

Bonar looked blank. ‘I don’t know. Wait for Magozzi to call, I guess. This thing’s driving me nuts.’

‘Go,’ Halloran said. ‘Take your cell, and if I get through to him, I’ll call you.’